Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the
Speaker 2: Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time.
Speaker 2: We continue this week with our look at werewolves, having
Speaker 2: previously discussed purported prehistoric origins of the were wolf in
Speaker 2: the experiences and observations of early humans, as well as
Speaker 2: the earliest known usages of the words were wolf and lacanthropy.
Speaker 2: The former were wolf emerges in the early second millennium CE,
Speaker 2: while the latter lacanthropy, has an older but complex history
Speaker 2: as a second century CE catch all for various mental illnesses,
Speaker 2: which came to be conflated with the Greek myth of
Speaker 2: Lacaan Licaan was the legendary king of Arcadia who dare
Speaker 2: to try and trick the high god Zeus into eating
Speaker 2: human flesh. His ploy was unsuccessful, however, and Zeus inflicted
Speaker 2: a fitting divine punishment for one so savage, which Avid
Speaker 2: describes as following in the Metamorphosis Henry Thomas Riley translation. Alarmed,
Speaker 2: he himself takes to flight, and, having reached the solitude
Speaker 2: of the country. He howls aloud and in vain attempts
Speaker 2: to speak. His mouth gathers rage from himself, and through
Speaker 2: its usual desire for slaughter, it is directed against the sheep,
Speaker 2: and even still delights in blood. His garments are changed
Speaker 2: into hair, his arms into legs. He becomes a wolf,
Speaker 2: and he still retains vestiges of his ancient form. His
Speaker 2: hoariness is still the same, The same violence appears in
Speaker 2: his features. His eyes are bright as before. He is
Speaker 2: still the same image of ferocity, and just to be sure,
Speaker 2: all responsible parties are punished, Zeus follows us up with
Speaker 2: the Great flood. But Laikayan himself is indeed transformed into
Speaker 2: a wolf, and, like the biblical Caine, as Riley points
Speaker 2: out in his notes, he is forced to live as
Speaker 2: a cast off outsider, a lone wolf. In some tellings,
Speaker 2: his sons are transformed as well. While the myth of
Speaker 2: Likaan is sometimes held up as an ancient key to
Speaker 2: understanding subsequent werewolf tales, Daniel Ogden in twenty twenty one's
Speaker 2: were Wolves in the Ancient World maintains that the tale
Speaker 2: is a quote metaphorical derivative of the ancient folkloric traditions
Speaker 2: that are indeed the key. He devotes an entire later
Speaker 2: chapter in the book to Laichan and the complex interplay
Speaker 2: there of three key categories. One historic evidence for a
Speaker 2: lupine transformation right of passage for young men of the
Speaker 2: Antet clan. Two various related myths of lupine transformation and
Speaker 2: sacrilegious acts of human sacrifice in cannab and three a
Speaker 2: supposedly historical tale of an individual changing into a wolf
Speaker 2: after eating part of a human sacrifice at the Likekaea
Speaker 2: festival on the slopes of Mount ly Chaan aka Wolf Mountain.
Speaker 2: I won't attempt to summarize the entirety of his analysis,
Speaker 2: but Ogden does contend that the story is more werewolf
Speaker 2: adjacent than anything. Lykaan is a man punished with transformation
Speaker 2: into a wolf, a transformation that occurs only once outside
Speaker 2: of his control, making him no more a true were
Speaker 2: wolf than Aracting, another victim of divine transformation punishment in
Speaker 2: Greek myth is a were spider, so an unsatisfying were
Speaker 2: wolf and by no means the key trendsetter that some
Speaker 2: make him out to be, but still an important and
Speaker 2: influential myth in the Grand Tradition of werewolves. As discussed
Speaker 2: in the last episode, he's not key to the understanding
Speaker 2: of the word lacanthropy, but his myth eventually becomes conflated
Speaker 2: with the term to some degree. Now. One of the
Speaker 2: tales interwoven in the Arcadian myth is that of the
Speaker 2: Olympic athlete DeMarcus, a boxer who is said to have
Speaker 2: been transformed into a wolf for a period of nine
Speaker 2: to ten years at the Festival of Lykaa, possibly due
Speaker 2: to ritual consumption of human flesh, thus, as is common
Speaker 2: in all Ichaean myths, blurring the line between man and beast.
Speaker 2: But Ogden stresses that the quote unquote werewolf ism of DeMarcus,
Speaker 2: if we may call it, that, is more directly related
Speaker 2: to his status as a superb athlete. In keeping with
Speaker 2: various other supernatural stories of the time about athletes, including
Speaker 2: other accounts of lupine transformation, this would seem a tale
Speaker 2: as old as time. Multiple contemporary mma fighters, for example,
Speaker 2: and professional sports stars have been nicknamed werewolf. The Batman
Speaker 2: villain known as Werewolf was also an Olympic athlete, and
Speaker 2: let us not forget teen Wolf cousins Scott and Todd
Speaker 2: Howe Howard, known for their lycanthropic basketball abilities. This brings
Speaker 2: us back to a continuing point of contemplation in werewolf traditions,
Speaker 2: there is a certain bit of the beast that we
Speaker 2: admire and crave to manifest in our strength and speed,
Speaker 2: or even in our savagery. We'll have more to explore
Speaker 2: concerning ancient loacanthropy in the next episode, including the best
Speaker 2: cases for the earliest written and visual depictions of werewolves.
Speaker 2: Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Factor, The
Speaker 2: Artifact or Animalist Dependium each week. As always, you can
Speaker 2: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 2: dot com.
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